Strung racquets are used in a wide variety of sports involving the propulsion of a game-ball by its impact with the stringed surface of the racquet. The natural resiliency of the racquet strings beneficially dampens the impact force on the users arm and wrist, improves power, and greatly enhances the directional control which can be imposed on balls struck by the racquet. Because of such attributes, strung racquets have always been very popular, and the same are employed in games such as tennis, squash, badminton, and the like. While strung racquets are admirably suited for such games, they must occasionally be restrung as a consequence of string damage resulting from misadventure, or that simply caused by ordinary wear and tear, including the natural tendency of the strings to stretch due to the repeated impacts to which they are subjected. The restringing process is ordinarily performed in a racquet stringing machine in which the strings are laced back and forth across the racquet under tension. The tension is maintained during the stringing process by means of string clamps which hold the strings tightly as they are passed back and forth within the area of the racquets frame during the restringing process, thus preventing undesirable string relaxation.
In the past, a variety of clamps have been used for such purpose, including those in which the fastening of the clamps to the stringing machine, and to the strings themselves, is usually ccomplished by means of a cam provided in the clamp mechanism. Unfortunately, however, the clamping action produced by caming is relatively unsmooth, and it is difficult to properly control the correct amount of pressure on parts of the machine to which the clamps are attached, and to the racquet strings. Among other adverse consequences caused by such lack of control is the fact that wear on the stringing machine components is increased, and undesirably erratic tensioning of the strings results.